U.S. Army reservist and ROTC member Pfc. Vinh Nguyen shows his American flag tattoo. The Orange soldier's residency card has expired as he waits in the immigration bureaucracy to take the oath. Nguyen is scheduled to deploy for the middle east next year. He said there's no better country than the United States and is ready to serve proudly.

U.S. Army reservist and ROTC soldier Pfc. Vinh Nguyen's residency card has expired as he waits to take the oath of citizenship. The Orange soldier is scheduled for a middle east deployment.

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U.S. Army reservist and ROTC member Pfc. Vinh Nguyen shows the USA and sword tattoo on his back. The Orange soldier's residency card has expired as he waits in the immigration bureaucracy to take the oath. Nguyen is scheduled to deploy for the middle east next year.

Vinh Nguyen shows his expired residency card. The U.S. Army reservist and ROTC member waits in the immigration bureaucracy to take the oath. Nguyen is scheduled to deploy for the middle east next year.

U.S. Army reservist and ROTC soldier Pfc. Vinh Nguyen's residency card has expired as he waits to take the oath of citizenship. The Orange soldier is scheduled for a middle east deployment.

Pfc. Vinh Nguyen shows his military ID card. He said there's no better country than the United States and is ready to serve proudly. However, Nguyen, who had his U.S. citizenship interview at the beginning of the year and was told he'd attend an oath ceremony 90 days letter, has yet to attend. Instead, he became stuck in an immigration bureaucracy where officials told him his file wasn't in the right place and promised to rush it through but failed to do so, he said. His legal residency card expired two weeks ago and he worried that he might have fallen out of status. The ROTC member and Army reservist is scheduled to deploy for the Middle East next year.

ORANGE – Nearly a month after his residency card expired, Army Pfc. Vinh Nguyen started to seriously worry about his future in the adopted nation he said he would be willing to die for.

Nguyen, who lives in Orange, was born in the Philippines and his parents are from Vietnam. He came to the United States legally with his mother when he was two months old and appreciated his life here so much that he enlisted in the U.S. Army nearly two years ago, he said.

However, the 22-year-old immigrant with a U.S. flag tattooed into his right upper arm said he’s had problems negotiating the immigration system despite being in the military.

“I know it sounds cliché, but I wanted to serve my country,” Nguyen said. “I just think it’s the greatest country in the world. I think it should be everyone’s duty to do what they can to help others.”

He should have taken an oath at a March ceremony after an immigration official approved his citizenship application at the beginning of the year. Instead, Nguyen said, he received nothing in the mail about attending a ceremony and was given the run-around for months by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration officials at the Santa Ana office.

In May, officials said he needed to redo his fingerprints. In July, they told him his case was in the wrong office but would be expedited because he’s in the military. On Monday, an immigration agent told him he’d have to visit the Los Angeles office because his case still hadn’t been rushed through.

His lack of U.S. citizenship would likely disrupt his hopes to complete his schooling and become an officer in the Army.

“It’s stressful because it’s getting down to the wire,” Nguyen said on Tuesday. “It’s going to affect my military career if I can’t do this.”

On Thursday, after a call from the press, USCIS spokeswoman Mariana Gitomer said Nguyen’s file had been misrouted but that it would be processed as soon as possible for the next citizenship ceremony. Gitomer said Nguyen could be sworn in as early as next month.

The agency processes 9,000 cases a month in the Los Angeles area and some cases may fall through the cracks, she said.

While Nguyen said he doesn’t want to talk ill of the government and has tried to bottle up his feelings, he did say the situation has been demoralizing. It’s also cost him a great deal of stress, the right to vote and some other military benefits.

While Nguyen, an Army reservist stationed in Bell, is part of the ROTC program at Cal State Long Beach, he said he hasn’t been able to retain a contract with the corps because officials require proof of U.S. citizenship to do so. That means he’s missed out on the $450 monthly stipend for serving with the corps and the $1,000 for books while he attends the school as a full-time student, studying criminal justice.

Legal residents are allowed to enlist and serve in the U.S. military and fight in wars without being a U.S. citizen. They are also allowed to enroll in college.

ROTC supervisors had given him a December deadline to receive his citizenship documents and Nguyen faced deployment to the Middle East next year without becoming officially an American.

Now, he said, he’ll be able to finish his studies and perhaps become an officer before he deploys in a couple of years. He hopes to make a career in the Army and eventually become military police.

Nguyen said he feels like a big weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

Still, he wonders.

“If this is happening to me, it may be happening to other people. They may not have the means to pursue,” he said. “I would like to see some change so this doesn’t happen in the future to military or civilians… It has changed my opinion on how the government runs things. There should be less red tape. More efficient.”

Despite his experience, he said he still believes in the government.

In 2003, he visited Vietnam and saw the poverty in his parents’ native land.

“We take better care of our people,” Nguyen said. “I know what other countries are like and how our country is so much better. It’s something worth defending. “